Focal Passage: Hebrews 11:8-19
How do you handle interruptions? One might say that life is nothing but a series of interruptions. How we handle interruptions says a great deal about what we believe about God and how we live for Christ. From our perspective the events of life can appear to be interruptions. From God’s side of things, the events of life are part of His sovereign, providential workings in our lives to carry out His purposes.
Some might say that Abraham’s life was a series of interruptions. But because we know “the rest of the story” we know that God was working through these interruptions to accomplish His divine purposes.
Interruption No. 1 — (Hebrews 11:8-10) Abraham’s life was interrupted by God’s call to move from his homeland to a land he did not know. Why? Because sometimes we cannot serve God from where we are. This may not require a physical move as it did Abraham, but it may require a spiritual and mental move.
Shrum
Interruption No. 2 — (Hebrews 11:11-12) Sarah’s life was interrupted by the news that she would give birth to a child at an advanced age. When most were entering retirement Sarah was just beginning. God may interrupt our plans for leisure and relaxation to carry out His will. God may do this at any time – when we’re young, middle-aged or older. She embraced God’s interruption as it notes in vs. 11 because “she considered that the One (God) who had promised is faithful.”
Interruption No. 3 – (Hebrews 11:17-19) God’s ultimate interruption seemed unthinkable — sacrifice the very son (Isaac) He had promised to give Abraham and Sarah. But Abraham endured this unthinkable “ask” by faith because he “considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking (vs. 19).” Abraham believed more in God’s power to raise the dead than he did in the unthinkable death of his son Isaac. We serve a God that has often been killed — or so it seems — but a God that is really good, perfectly good at rising from the dead.
According to Hebrews 11:8-19, how does one handle these interruptions?
1. The interruptions of life may not always be resolved in our lifetime (v. 13): “These died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised.” We live by faith through life’s interruptions knowing that there may be times that we will not know how things turn out, but God does.
2. The interruptions of life remind us that everything is temporary; we do not rest our faith on the temporal but in the eternal (vs. 14): “they were seeking a homeland” and a city whose builder and maker is God (v. 10). Interruptions remind us that nothing is permanent in this life, so it is okay if things are interrupted.
3. The interruptions of life test our faith. What is it we actually believe? Are we living as actual Christians rather than practical atheists?
Elizabeth Elliot once noted that living the Christian life is like looking at the back of a massive tapestry where we only see a faint outline of what it means through a variety of multi-colored threads. But in eternity God will turn the tapestry around so that we can see the beauty of God’s purposes in our lives — every interruption, every colored thread, even those dark colored threads of sorrow and suffering, only to see that every interruption had a divine purpose for our good and God’s glory. B&R
